Cut

A teenager's attempt to maintain psychological integrity—the maladaptive coping mechanisms she uses as a way to stay alive and her path to recovery.

Awards

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New York Times Book Review

"A vivid and inspiring first novel ... Cut is deft and fascinating —part psychological mystery story (what's eating Callie?) and part adolescent drama (will her friends help her get better?)."

Boston Globe, The

"Cut, a debut novel by Patricia McCormick, is one of the best young-adult novels in years. …Cut is everything one hoped Girl, Interrupted might be —riveting and hopeful, sweet, heartbreaking, with something much like a happy ending"

School Library Journal

"Callie's first-person account of her stay at Sea Pines, a mental-health facility, is poignant and compelling reading. ... Shelley Stoehr's Crosses (Bantam, 1991) and Steven Levenkron's Luckiest Girl in the World (Viking 1995) dealt with cutting, but Cut takes the issue one step further —to help teens find solutions to problems."

New York Times Book Review

"A vivid and inspiring first novel ... Cut is deft and fascinating —part psychological mystery story (what's eating Callie?) and part adolescent drama (will her friends help her get better?)."

Boston Globe, The

"Cut, a debut novel by Patricia McCormick, is one of the best young-adult novels in years. …Cut is everything one hoped Girl, Interrupted might be —riveting and hopeful, sweet, heartbreaking, with something much like a happy ending"

School Library Journal

"Callie's first-person account of her stay at Sea Pines, a mental-health facility, is poignant and compelling reading. ... Shelley Stoehr's Crosses (Bantam, 1991) and Steven Levenkron's Luckiest Girl in the World (Viking 1995) dealt with cutting, but Cut takes the issue one step further —to help teens find solutions to problems."

Kirkus Reviews

"First-timer McCormick tackles a side of mental illness that is rarely seen in young-adult literature in a believable and sensitive manner. ... A thoughtful look at teenage mental illness and recovery."

Publishers Weekly

"This novel, like Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, sympathetically and authentically renders the difficulties of giving voice to a very real sense of harm and powerlessness. Refusing to sensationalize her subject matter, McCormick steers past the confines of the problem-novel genre with her persuasive view of the teenage experience."

Horn Book

"First-time author McCormick creates a sensitive portrayal of a young girl's illness and her difficult path to recovery."

Booklist

"Like E.L. Konigsburg's Silent to the Bone and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, Cut is another authentic-sounding novel in which elective mutism plays a part, this time with humor making the pain of adolescence gone awry more bearable...an exceptional character study of a young woman and her hospital mates who struggle with demons so severe that only their bodies can confess."

Five Owls

"Cut is a powerful first novel. McCormick has a gift for description and internal dialogue, placing the reader right inside Callie's head. The scenes are set so perfectly with detail and observation that there are times when one feels as confused, despondent, and as desperate as Callie does."

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"The first-person present-tense narrative voice … is effective in its hushed intensity and fragile distance … McCormick spins a compelling yarn."

Voice of Youth Advocate

"This extraordinary novel explores the psychological phenomenon of self-mutilation known as cutting … Realist, sensitive, and heartfelt, this book explores the power of the human spirit as it struggles through mental illness. The well-developed characters, including the motherly, rock-solid secondary character of Ruby, one of the attendants, also reflect the author's strength as a writer. This brilliant novel is even more perceptive than Shelley Stoehr's Crosses and James Bennett's I Can Hear the Mourning Dove."

Teenreads.com

"Cut is Patricia McCormick's first novel and an ambitious undertaking. She probes the minds of all the characters with compassion and sensitivity. The issues covered in this book are important ones that face many teenagers and young adults all over the world."

KLIATT

"The realities of life in a psychiatric hospital are conveyed well in this strong first novel, as well as the stresses that led to Callie's disorder. There are detailed accounts of her cutting behavior, too, but they aren't here for shock value; rather, they contribute to the authentic feel of the novel. Callie and the other residents, anorexics and drug users as well as a fellow cutter, come across as believable and mostly sympathetic characters. The glimpse of life inside a treatment center will intrigue readers, and Callie's neediness, her courage, and realistically difficult recovery will move them."

Robert Cormier

"I read Cut in one breathless sitting, mesmerized by 15-year-old Callie whose silent struggle against self-destructive impulses captured my heart as well as my admiration. In her memorable debut novel, Patricia McCormick takes the reader on a journey through the geography of a teenager's troubled mind. We watch as she summons the courage to face the inward forces that threaten her sanity and, perhaps, her very life. You will not soon forget a girl named Callie and this remarkable novel."

A.M. Homes

"Cut captures the power of guilt within a family, a teenager's profound need to make sense of the world around her, to cope in whatever way she can. Cut is a book for everyone who works with teenagers, everyone who is a teenager, and everyone who remembers what it is like to be on the edge."

Anne Pleshette Murphy

"From the first sentence of Patricia McCormick's powerful novel, the reader is intimately involved in the central character's heartbreaking struggle. You share Callie's anguish, admire her strength, resent her stubbornness, second-guess her decisions —live inside her mind and heart until the story's riveting ending, when you're left hungry for more. I will recommend Cut to all my friends with adolescents and to their kids, as well."